Gerry White is many things — a recovering alcoholic, a raconteur who knows how to spin a story, a lawyer who often works pro bono for his clients, all of whom are addicts. Some even consider him a sort of hero, though he rejects the label.

What he’s not is much good at is keeping books and records. That failing got him in hot water with the Law Society of Upper Canada, which wanted to suspend him indefinitely until he cleaned up his act. What happened next, though, was extraordinary.

White, now 69, had his first drink at 13. He quit in 1977 and hasn’t touched alcohol since.

After running Billy Buffet’s House of Welcome, a recovery home in Vanier, for seven years, White enrolled in law school at the University of Ottawa, determined to help addicts in trouble with the law.

He was called to the bar — the legal variety — in 1995 at age 50. Since then, he has earned a reputation as Ottawa’s go-to lawyer for people with addictions facing criminal charges.

Some of his clients qualify for legal aid. But many don’t and can afford to pay White little or nothing. As long as his clients are committed to kicking their addiction, though, White will represent them at no charge.

Such generosity of spirit has consequences. Unlike other lawyers, White — who sees about 100 clients in a typical year — doesn’t enjoy a six-figure income. But money was never his motivator.

“All I want my clients to do is clean up,” he said in an interview. “To me, that’s the only way you can deter them from committing crimes.”

Unless an accused has money or is eligible for legal aid, few lawyers will touch them, White said.

“And I think that’s preposterous. The Charter of Rights says you have the charter right to make full answer in defence. It doesn’t say, if you don’t have the money, you’re screwed.”

White first appeared on the Law Society’s radar in 2003, when an audit found his books and records weren’t up to date. A second audit in 2010 found even more problems.

That prompted escalating demands from the Law Society for White to produce his books and records. White ignored them all, something he readily acknowledged in an agreed statement of facts presented at his disciplinary hearing.

That might seem like a cavalier approach in a tightly regulated, rule-bound profession. But in his July 7 decision, Law Society Tribunal adjudicator John Campion more or less agreed, saying “there can be no doubt about (White’s) contribution to society in general through his practice.

“Mr. White’s work in aid of persons suffering from alcohol and drug addiction is the work of a hero,” Campion wrote, saying his work “is to be greatly commended and admired.”

Campion pointed out that Rev. William Main, founder of the Harvest House Christian Fellowship, and Justice Célynne Dorval of the Ontario Court of Justice both wrote glowing letters about White.

In her letter, Dorval said White “contributes significant work to the criminal justice process in Ottawa. He does so in an unconventional manner and often without remuneration.

“In my view, his devotion to his clients is an example to follow in the contemporary practice of law, which is all too often geared only to income generating work,” she said.

Despite those “powerful testaments to Mr. White’s remarkable contributions,” said Campion, the Law Society argued that a suspension was appropriate and would not fully interrupt his work as a social worker.

Campion disagreed, saying White’s efforts as a social worker cannot easily be divorced from his role as a lawyer.

The adjudicator found there was little chance that White’s past books and records will ever meet the high standards required by the Law Society.

But given White’s unconventional practice, “there is virtually no likelihood that Mr. White handled clients’ money improperly,” he said. Even so, Campion conceded, White “cannot escape the obligations that enable him to practise law.”

Although the Law Society wanted a suspension and $24,000 in costs, Campion said a letter of reprimand was the appropriate penalty along with nominal costs of $1,000.

White’s practice, he observed, “does not generate a large income but does generate a large benefit for society.”

White called the adjudicator “absolutely amazing. He was very fair.” The penalty was appropriate, he said. “I admitted the error of my ways.”

He’s now working with a bookkeeper to try to clean up his record-keeping going forward. “It’s not perfect,” he said. “But we’re trying.”

But White isn’t sold on Campion’s description of him as a hero.

“The real heroes in my practice are the people who follow my direction and the judges who have the courage to impose the appropriate sentence,” he said. “I’m just the middleman.”

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